


One Thousand Paper Cranes

by TangentQueenOfDragons



Category: Death Note, Death Note & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Post-Kira, near has a breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 00:15:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5561401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TangentQueenOfDragons/pseuds/TangentQueenOfDragons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is an ancient Japanese legend that says that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish. </p>
<p>   By his fifth crane, he told himself that he was making a small collection. By his eighteenth, he was enjoying a new pastime. By his forty ninth, he stopped trying to come up with a better excuse. </p>
<p>   He wondered if Mello had ever heard the legend, and if they would have believed it if they had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Thousand Paper Cranes

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on an idea I had a couple of weeks ago (you may have seen it floating around on tumblr). Last night I was struck with a sudden inspiration, and so I decided to write it.

   There is an ancient Japanese legend that says that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish. 

   Near did not believe in such things. If one really received a wish from folding a thousand cranes, surely that would be the kind of thing that everyone knew about? It was a beautiful legend, but it was nonsense. That's what Near told himself as he folded his first crane. 

   By his fifth crane, he told himself that he was making a small collection. By his eighteenth, he was enjoying a new pastime. By his forty ninth, he stopped trying to come up with a better excuse. 

   He wondered if Mello had ever heard the legend, and if they would have believed it if they had.  

   "It's not literal," Near imagined them saying. "The wish. It's probably more like a prayer. Showing whoever it is you believe in how much you want something. Because you'd have to really want it to take the time to fold a thousand origami cranes in the hopes of getting it." That's what they would say. And maybe they would be right. Near had never been sure what he believed in, but he had always believed in Mello. 

   One hundred and fourteen and Halle finally said something, enquiring about Near's wellbeing, if he wanted to talk about whatever it was that was obviously playing on his mind. Near was too sharp with her, his response basically boiling down to 'mind your own business and leave me alone'. No one questioned the steadily increasing  number of cranes after that, but they all watched him, clearly worried. Near couldn't bring himself to care. 

   Two hundred and thirty three and he decided he would only allow himself to think about Mello after every tenth crane. That seemed sensible. 

   "Nothing about this is sensible," they would have said, picking up a crane and examining it before tossing it over their shoulder and taking a bite of chocolate. "You know that, right? This is the exact opposite of sensible." 

"Shut up, Mello," Near muttered, folding crane number two hundred and thirty four. "I can't think about you for another six cranes." 

Two hundred and thirty five and Near reasoned that he must be losing his mind. 

                                                                                        ......................

   Three hundred and seven and he decided he had all the time in the world to be sensible after he was finished. And it wouldn't be long. It took him three minutes to finish a crane, which meant it would take him fifty hours to fold all one thousand. He was allowing himself two hours a day to fold his cranes. Forty cranes a day. It was day eight. Seventeen days to go. 

   His life was becoming a blur of paper cranes and numbers and Mello's voice sounding less and less imaginary. When he wasn't folding, he was thinking about folding. He wouldn't let himself go over two hours a day, but he could no longer do anything else either, anything but sit and rock and twirl his hair and pace and tear up pieces of paper because he needed to do _something_ with his hands, but they were only steady when he was folding. 

   "Stop doing this, Near," Mello told him as he started on number four hundred and sixty two. Of course, they didn't actually, or at least Near didn't think so. He could hear them clear as day, see them in the corner of his eye, but every time he turned, they weren't there. Maybe it didn't matter. Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one, isn't that what Einstein had said? 

   "Make sure you eat and get enough sleep, or else you'll start to hallucinate. Isn't that what every doctor ever has said?" Mello retorted, and Near smiled, couldn't help it, because there was something undeniably amusing about a hallucination reprimanding you for hallucinating. 

   Six hundred and seventy nine and Near was starting to taste the colour of the paper he was folding. He had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that morning, and his eyes had been wide, almost feral. He couldn't remember sleeping since he started folding the cranes. He knew he must be, since he was still functioning, but everything was blurring, the two alarms indicating the beginning and end of his two hours of folding, and the steadily increasing number of cranes the only semblances of time he had left. 

   At some point, Halle had taken to placing a protein shake in front of him, during meal times, Near presumed. He didn't question it, just drank them dutifully. 

  "Don't want everyone to think you're losing you're mind," Mello said sarcastically. Near thought they made a very good point. 

                                                                                      .......................

   Eight hundred and eleven and Mello disappeared.  

   Near waited for them. He tried to conjure them up. He physically looked for them, but it was no use. Mello was gone. He couldn't understand it. Why now? Why when he was so close? Or maybe it was _because_ he was so close? He couldn't even remember anymore if it was really Mello or a figment of his imagination. Logically, it was the latter. But, he admitted, looking around at the origami cranes covering almost every surface of the room, he had thrown logic out the window eight hundred and eleven cranes ago. 

   Nine hundred and forty one and he started crying, his breath short gasps and the paper in his hands joining the blur that was the rest of his life at this point. A small part of his mind that still held some clarity told him he was on the edge of a complete breakdown and he needed to _stop this_ , but he was so close, so close and he couldn't stop now.  

   Nine hundred and eighty nine and he screamed and threw a glass at the wall. He didn't know why. He just did.  

   Nine hundred and ninety nine and he couldn't breathe. 

   One thousand and he sighed, laid back on the floor and slept. 

                                                                                       .......................

   He woke up what felt like a long while later, if his stiff, sore body was any indication, a pillow under his head and a blanket covering him, like someone had wanted him to be comfortable but hadn't wanted to move him. The last crane was still cupped in his right hand.  

   One thousand origami cranes. Twenty five days. Had it really only been twenty five? It had felt like months and months. Twenty five days seemed like such a brief descent into madness, now that he was finally thinking clearly again. He supposed that was what happened when one let time slip away from them. 

   Regular people would have been sent to counselling, or maybe even temporarily institutionalized if they had spent a week like he had, let alone almost a month. But then, those from Wammys were allowed to behave however they liked as long as the job got done. Near had never thought to resent that fact before now.  

   "Oh. You're awake." 

Halle was eyeing him warily from the doorway. He didn't move to sit up. He didn't have the energy to. 

"How long have I been sleeping?" 

"About nineteen hours." Wow. He had really been out of it. "We would have woken you up, but... well, you really needed it."  

   Near nodded and closed his eyes, deciding he would make it an even twenty four. He had all the time in the world to be sensible once he was finished, after all, and he wasn't, not quite yet. He drifted off again, the last crane still in his hand 

   He actually did manage to wake himself five hours later. He still didn't feel properly rested, but at least he had the energy to stand. He ran a hand through his greasy hair, trying to remember when he had last had a shower or changed his clothes. He decided he didn't want to know.  

   Showering felt like he was washing away the last dregs of the past month, the blurriness and the mania, scrubbing it off and letting it wash down the drain. Water could cleanse anything, depending on what you believed. Mello used to say it could wash away sin. Leave you pure, just for a moment. Near had caught them standing in the rain sometimes when they were young, arms held out, and wondered if that's what they had been doing, and how Wammys had gotten it so wrong that a child felt the need to be cleansed. 

He no longer blamed Mello for leaving. 

   One thousand, and Near pocketed the last crane, heading out into the already dark evening, wondering what he was going to do with himself after he was finished, if the worst of his grief would be out of his system. If he could go back to being sensible. If not for his own sake, then for the sake of the people who needed his help, and if not for theirs (because sometimes he just wanted to say damn them all) then for Mello's. For Mello's sake, yes.  

                                                                                       ...........................

   It was a quiet spot. Under the branches of a willow tree, which Near thought they would have liked. Peaceful. 

    _Mihael Keehl._ Near ran his fingers over the lettering. He hated knowing their name like this. He would have liked to earn it. He would have liked a lot of things after the Kira case, but things just don't turn out the way you want them to. They never do. 

   One thousand paper cranes. Near took the last one out of his pocket and placed it on top of the headstone. He waited. One minute. Then five. Then twenty. He stood and he waited for almost an hour. He didn't know what he was waiting for. He knew what his wish was. But even if wishes could be granted, he still would never get his. 

   One thousand paper cranes and silent tears. The wish was never literal. A prayer. To show whoever it was you believed in just how much you wanted something. Near had never been sure what he believed in, but he had always believed in Mello. 

   He ran his fingers over their name one last time and went home.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I'm sorry. Hope you enjoyed it anyway. I'd love some feedback, so drop me a comment maybe?
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
